Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Today's fortune: July 20, 2011

Instead of using honesty and friendship to bring me fortune, I gave fortunes to my friends and received honesty in return.

Let me explain. As you surely know, it's National Fortune Cookie Day today. To celebrate, I took a big bowl of fortune cookies to work with me and gave one to anybody who walked by my desk.

Here's where the honesty comes into play. Several of my friends and co-workers opened up their cookies right at my desk. I'm jaded by fortune cookies, because I open one every single day. Even though I get a new fortune every day, the new has worn off of the experience and the exhilaration of cracking open the cookie and anticipating the message.

But it was eye-opening to see other people open the fortunes. I was seeing their honest, true selves in that moment, their hopeful selves. I saw the faces they wore on Christmas morning as little kids. And when they shared their fortunes with me, even if the fortunes were strange, they always smiled - a good, honest smile.

It reminds me why I decided to do this project in the first place.

*****

On a side note, congratulations to Amy, a faithful follower of the My Daily Fortune Facebook page (which you can "like" on the right-hand side of this page). By being the first commenter on this morning's Facebook wall post, Amy wins a prize in honor of National Fortune Cookie Day. The prize is a signed copy of Jennifer 8 Lee's terrific book The Fortune Cookie Chronicles.

Congrats, Amy!

I was also planning to give away a prize to the first person who commented on this morning's blog post, but since nobody bothered to comment, no prize.